


a certain restless brilliancy

by bluebacchus



Series: the verge of remembrance [3]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Eating Disorders, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempts, Lack of Communication, Mental Institution, Multi, including self-cannibalism, referenced past cannibalism, soft tender boys who no longer eat soft tender meat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-02-01 22:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebacchus/pseuds/bluebacchus
Summary: Healing is not always a linear process
Relationships: Implied Sophia Cracroft/Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Series: the verge of remembrance [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472306
Comments: 5
Kudos: 39





	a certain restless brilliancy

**Author's Note:**

> Title is, as always, courtesy of Mr. Poe. This time it is most appropriately from The System of Dr. Tarr and Mr. Fether.
> 
> Big ol' CW for disordered eating (secondary to PTSD), depression, and references to the suicide attempts in "out of joy is sorrow born". This one has a happy ending, I swear.

It’s a shame, Little thinks, that he can’t bring himself to think of Sir James Clark Ross as anything but a jailor. The man sits next to him in the first class compartment of the train to East Sussex, book propped open on the table in front of him. It is a book about medicine, or maybe it is a memoir. Little finds it difficult to concentrate through the haze of tonics and powders Ross’s personal physician had administered before they departed earlier this morning. He can feel the gentle prodding of pain where the laudanum has done its work, dulling the senses where hastily applied stitches knit his skin together. The bandages are thick and unwieldy against the cuffs of his coat, and through the haze of drugs he knows they are completely visible to the other passengers on the train.

He leaves his hands in his lap, wrists turned up to avoid the sting of contact, and leans his head against the window, wishing he was dead.

* * *

“Don’t think of it as a hospital,” Sir James says, reminding Little that the estate house in front of him is, in fact, a hospital. “Think of it as a retreat. A vacation, if you will.”

Little doesn’t have to try to keep his face blank of emotion. He hasn’t felt much of anything since Sophia found him bleeding to death in her bathtub.

“The new carpet is ruined,” he remembers hearing her say when he was dragged back into consciousness by the light of the doctor’s lamp. He had started to laugh, and laughed so hard he started shaking and the doctor had to stop his precise needlework on Little’s left wrist, only resuming without a word after the laughter turned to sobs and he turned his head away, trying with no effect to suffocate himself in the pillow.

The laudanum fog that clouds his mind is beginning to disperse as he climbs the steps to Ticehurst House.

“Would you like me to come in with you?” Sir James asks, awkwardly standing at the foot of the stairs.

Little pauses, hand resting on the curve of the door handle. “I suppose you might see what your investment is worth.” It is no secret to him that Ross is footing the substantial bill for Little’s admission to Ticehurst; it’s a private hospital with highly trained staff and an impeccably kept building that more closely resembles an estate home than a hospital. It looks nothing like the dark hallways of West Riding that Little saw in his Dreams. He hopes he had done enough.

“You aren’t an investment, Edward,” Ross says carefully, climbing the stairs. “You’re a friend.”

“In that case, feel free to leave the inmate to his prison.”

“Edward,” Ross scolds, but thinks better of it. “If there is anything I can do to make it more bearable, please write.”

“I don’t believe lunatics are allowed the privilege of a pen.”

Ross is silent.

“Actually, there is something you can do. Can you write to Thomas Jopson?”

“Jopson? Crozier’s steward?”

“My friend.” Little corrects him gently, aware that before the expedition he would have addressed Jopson in the same dismissive manner as Ross.

“Of course. What would you like me to write?”

“Tell him…” Little pauses. “Tell him I’m well. And that I hope he can forgive me about what happened in London.”

Ross nods. “Ann, Sophia and I expect you back once you are well,” he says, and turns to leave. Edward uses the side of his hand to push the handle down and opens the door.

* * *

Little is asleep when the knock on the door comes. He startles awake, shivering as the winter wind blows in through his open window. The knock comes again. Silently, Edward wills whoever is on the other side to go away and leave him to his thoughts.

“I know you’re in there, Edward,” Jopson’s voice calls through the door. “I’m coming in.”

Before he can manifest a proper thought, Thomas Jopson pushes the door open with his shoulder and slops hot soup all over his sleeve.

Still half asleep and distracted by the chill, Little nods to the small table next to his bed, empty but for a lamp and a book with pages too fine for his bandaged hands to turn.

Jopson puts the steaming bowl of liquid down, removes a handkerchief from his pocket and dabs at the soup darkening the sleeve of his faded black coat. Replacing the handkerchief in his pocket, his eyes fall on Edward, reclining in the bed against a pile of pillows.

“You’re frightfully thin,” Jopson says. His eyes trail down from the sharpness of Edward’s collarbones to where the blankets pool around his hips. The nightshirt he wears is loose where it hangs off his emaciated frame.

“I can’t keep anything down,” Edward says. And then, because it’s Thomas, “I keep thinking about Davey Leys.”

Thomas sits on the bed, pushing Edward over and toeing his shoes off before swinging his legs up on the bed next to him.

“I can’t seem to sleep much these days,” he says conversationally. He sits close enough to Edward that their shoulders touch.

Thomas doesn’t look any worse for it. His skin is smooth, his eyes are bright, his hair is parted and combed and perfect. Edward wants to touch him and feel the softness of his skin but he doesn’t allow himself the privilege. Instead, he says “You still look beautiful.”

Jopson smiles. It’s a different smile from the one he wore before they returned to England. This one is smaller and more fragile; it makes him look sad.

“I thought I had best make an effort for you. I came under the assumption that ‘all was well’.”

Edward huffs out a small laugh. “Of course you knew it wasn’t.”

“You’re still a terrible liar, Edward.”

Hearing Thomas say his name shouldn’t make his chest hurt like it does.

In his silence, Jopson reaches over the nightstand and picks up the bowl of soup, spooning up some of the liquid and holding it over the bowl.

“Ready?” Jopson asks.

“What are you doing?”

Jopson raises his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you can do it yourself with those big mittens covering your hands.”

Edward hides his heavily bandaged wrists under the blanket, embarrassed.

“I…” he tries to say, but the words don’t come. He hasn’t spoken this much since he’s been at Ticehurst. He hasn’t left his room in days, too ashamed to let the other patients see the bandages. Whether it was shame over what he had done or shame that he had failed he didn’t know, but he refused to be pitied. Especially by Jopson.

Jopson puts the bowl of soup back on the table.

“Edward,” he says, but Edward breaks first and reaches for him.

He doesn’t feel the tears come until it’s too late and his face is pressed against Thomas’s neck. The hot tears slide off his nose and down his cheeks onto Thomas’s skin, and Thomas is crushing him tight against his chest. He pushes his face into the cool skin of Thomas’s neck and breathes in the scent of his skin and his hair while Thomas starts to shake with sobs above him.

“I missed you so much,” Edward whispers when he feels the first of Thomas’s tears splash against his cheek.

“Is that why?” Thomas doesn’t finish the question, just pulls back and reaches down to gently take one of Edward’s hands in his own.

The bandage extends down to his fingertips, where blood still cakes his fingernails. He can’t clean them himself, nor will he let anyone help him. It’s a part of his penance, he thinks, to see what he’s done and be reminded of the mistakes he made that led to it. The cuts have been stitched and are scabbing over, but the doctor still refuses to leave the bandages off. Edward understands the well-meaning concern that he may make an attempt to reopen the wounds, but he curses the doctor and his bandages for preventing him from feeling Thomas’s fingers slide between his own.

Instead, Thomas brushes his lips over the exposed tips of Edward’s fingers before lying down on his side and pulling Edward into his chest.

“I can’t live without you,” Edward whispers into the wool of Thomas’s jacket. “I should have realized it sooner.”

Jopson’s response is muffled against Edward’s hair. “You could have just written, you daft man.”

Edward relaxes into the arms wrapped tightly around him and, for the first time in months, smiles.

* * *

“The Sister only let me visit because I promised to bring you your soup and not leave until you’ve eaten it. Please don’t make me face her Holy wrath.”

Edward is pulled out of his dozing state by Jopson’s whisper.

“Are you certain you aren’t a dream?” he mumbles, and Jopson laughs. It’s the most beautiful sound Edward has ever heard.

“I’ve tasted the broth. It’s more likely to be a nightmare.”

Jopson stacks pillows behind Edward’s head and helps him sit up until he’s leaning against them.

Satisfied that he’s upright enough not to choke on the soup, Jopson moves back to the bedside chair and picks up the bowl of broth.

“You don’t have to do this for me.”

“I do,” Thomas says.

“I feel like-“

“Like a toothless old man with rheumatic hands?”

Edward opens his mouth in response, but Jopson is too quick with the spoon and dumps a mouthful of lukewarm chicken broth in his mouth.

He sputters but swallows it. “Oh, that _is_ foul,” he says.

“Perhaps if you weren’t so intent on killing yourself you could have had the roast duck.”

Edward balks and shrinks back against the pillows.

Jopson notices. “I’m sorry, Edward. That isn’t fair.”

“No, it is.” He opens his mouth for another spoonful, which Jopson provides. And then, quieter, “How do you do it?”

Jopson shakes his head, not understanding.

“Carry on. Move past… us. I thought,” Edward takes a deep breath and braces for the worst. “I thought you loved me.”

He expects pity, or laughter, or sympathy. He doesn’t expect Thomas’s knuckles to turn white where he grips the bowl, or the quiet anger in his voice.

“I spent-” Thomas pauses to collect himself before starting again.

“I spent every single day in England wishing I was back in that tent. I would rather be back, freezing and hungry and dirty and _dying_ than be back here, alone. You _left _me, Edward. You promised you wouldn’t, but you left me!”

His voice cracks with emotion over the last words, but he doesn’t stop.

“I told you, over and over, how much I loved you and how I wanted a life with you, but it was _you _that left _me._ And I tried to hate you for it. I wanted to hate you because it would be easier than facing the fact that you abandoned me, but I couldn’t. I could never hate you. And now you have the stones to ask if I love you? God, Edward, I think about you every day. I think about our cabin in Newfoundland. I think about our time with the Captain and Lady Silence in the snow house. I think about that tent and all the awful things we did to stay alive and I think of it _fondly _because I was with _you._ There is no ‘carrying on’ without you.”

“I’m sorry,” is all Edward can bring himself to say.

“A fortnight ago I took off my clothes and walked into the ocean. The tide was coming in and I kept walking until the waves were over my head. And then, right when I let myself fall, a fisherman packing up for the night saw me go under and insisted on saving my life. They trapped me in a charity hospital for a few days until I could convince them it was an unlucky accident.”

The look on Little’s face must be akin to abject horror, because Jopson shakes the hair off his forehead and continues, bitterly. “That’s what they do with us poor commoners with no one to take care of us, you see.”

“Did your- did Elisabeth not…” he trails off. Jopson and his wife’s relationship is none of his business. Given their history, it is perhaps less his business than anyone else’s.

“She’s gone,” Jopson says quietly.

They sit in silence for a moment. Jopson stirs the broth slowly with the spoon, occasionally letting it break the surface as he raises the spoon and pours the liquid back into the bowl.

“I drove her away,” he says finally. “Just like I did you.”

Little extends a hand, palm up, just far enough that he can pull it back if Jopson ignores its invitation.

“No,” he says. “You were right about me and my self-sacrificing nature.” He uses Jopson’s words from that night in the cabin they never should have left. “You’re always right about me.”

Jopson takes his hand. It feels like coming in from the cold to a blazing fire and a warm blanket.

“I know you better than anyone, Edward. You’re a part of me. I ate part of your leg, for God’s sake,” he says, as he one-handedly places the bowl of broth on the nightstand. Little is thankful the bowl made it to the table before he sits bolt upright in bed and jerks away from Jopson.

“You knew?”

Jopson’s features crease with confusion. “Yes? I told you, back in Newfoundland.”

Little is faintly aware that this conversation would be almost comical if it wasn’t so horrifying.

“B-but-“ Little stutters for the first time since he was eight years old. “I thought you meant..” He stops himself before he admits to anything else.

“Edward, I’ve already said you are a terrible, stupid, selfish man. What’s worse is that you must think me an absolute fool if I was to believe you went ‘hunting’ with a bone saw and came back missing a leg with a curiously leg-shaped steak that you refused to let me cook.”

Little flushes. In retrospect, it was a very bad plan.

“We would have died,” he says instead of admitting this.

“We would have been saved in time,” Jopson says.

“We didn’t know that. I didn’t have the Dream until after.”

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t, though.”

Jopson is shaking his head. “What did you think I meant? When I said I knew what you did?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Little says. “Not now.”

Jopson sits back in his chair, letting go of Little’s hand. “Something else is consuming you. Is it regret? Guilt?”

Jopson’s words harden as he speaks. Little can still see the fear on his face hidden beneath the impassive exterior, a look practiced from years of stewardship.

It doesn’t make it any easier to admit the truth.

Little shrinks into the pillows, trying to make himself small enough to disappear. He wonders if it’s too late to take the entire conversation back.

“Davey Leys,” he says finally.

Jopson stares at him, wide-eyes, before surprising him by starting to laugh.

“Thomas,” he says, bewildered and wondering if Jopson has lost his mind.

“We never should have left Newfoundland,” Jopson says, before flopping over the bed in a fit of laughter, this time with Edward’s breathy laugh ringing out beside it.

* * *

The nursing sister knocks and enters while Jopson is away, sequestered in the bunk house reserved for visitors.

“Mr. Little,” she says delicately. She sounds as if she is bringing bad news. “I’m here to discuss your friend.”

Edward nods. He knew this was coming. Thomas had been at Ticehurst for a fortnight, only leaving Edward’s company to wash and sleep in the guest quarters. There were nights when he never returned to his bunk, instead falling asleep with Edward cradled against his chest like he was something to cherish. Edward of the past would have been concerned about the optics of it- two men sharing a bed was taboo even if one was a certified lunatic and the other providing lifesaving care- but he can’t bring himself to be bothered. The presence of the other man is the only thing keeping him from ripping the stitches in his wrists open. The unlimited supply of patience Thomas has when he feeds him one spoonful of broth at a time outshines the sisters’, and when he has swallowed as much of the hot soup as he can, Thomas crawls into bed with him and holds him, stroking his hair and rubbing his back until the nausea subsides and his shrunken stomach begins to work.

“My _friend_ is the reason I am still alive, Sister,” Edward says.

Her face remains impassive. “The other patients are talking.”

“Let them.”

“Mr. Little, this hospital has a reputation for respectability-“

“It’s not much of a hospital, is it?” Edward says dryly. “Mr. Jopson makes a far more convincing doctor than any of the men I’ve seen, and he’s a far more accomplished nurse than you.”

The Sister doesn’t look hurt by his words. It’s because, he realizes later, she’s heard them all before. In a day he’ll feel guilty, but right now he feels only anger towards her, towards the doctors, towards the patients who complained, and a deep need to defend Thomas against all of them.

“I expect you both gone within the week,” she says simply, closing the door behind her as she leaves.

* * *

“You’re certain this is it?” Jopson asks. His hands are full, one carrying Edward’s suitcase and the other wrapped around Edward’s waist, supporting him as he sags against him on the doorstep of the country house.

“Not at all,” Edward admits, “but I hope so. I don’t think I can make it much further.”

“You shouldn’t have been forced to go this far, Edward. I’ll talk to Sir James about that dreadful hospital once you’re abed.”

Jopson kicks the door with his boot, refusing to let go of Edward to set his case down. A man in a tidy black suit opens the door. Sophia is expecting them, but it is clear the valet is not expecting to find a pair of shabby, exhausted men standing on his doorstep.

“We’re guests of Sophia Cracroft?” Jopson says, intonation making it a question. He speaks with his steward’s accent now, as opposed to his time spent at Ticehurst. He made it quite clear to the staff and the wealthy patients that he was a Marylebone boy who had practical experience to rival the nursing staff; Edward thinks the rumours circulating about Jopson threatening one of the doctors with a switchblade was what allowed him to stay overnight in Edward’s room without question.

The rumours eventually led them here, but as long as Edward has a bed waiting at the top of the curved staircase, he has no complaints. He has Thomas back, and nothing is going to change that.

* * *

The first couple weeks at the Ross house are blissful. Edward doesn’t get out of bed for more than an hour at a time, content to sleep and hold Thomas in his arms between aborted attempts at eating solid food. Even with the comforting presence of the man he loves beside him, the nausea overcomes him and he rolls out of the large, plush bed and vomits into the bucket he keeps within arm’s reach. It sits in the spot where he would keep his slippers if he was still a normal man.

Thomas rubs his back and wipes his face clear of bile and tears with a handkerchief, and they sit on the floor of the guest room until one of the house servants, notified by the loud _thump _of Edward hitting the floor, comes up to check on them and exchanges the soiled bucket for a clean one.

Between bouts of illness, Edward sleeps. The Dreams have subsided since returning to England. They haven’t stopped- he still dreams of whaleboats and Francis and of a pair of hands pressing a loop of coiled rope into Thomas’s hands, but the Dreams do not frighten him like they used to.

The sheer joy he feels from waking up with Thomas in his bed, curled up next to him, is enough to push the uncertainty of the Dreams away, and when he falls back asleep, he dreams of nothing at all.

* * *

The bread sits heavy in his stomach and he struggles to keep it down.

Edward has finally made it down to join Thomas and Sophia and Ann and James for dinner, and he methodically tears the dinner roll into smaller and smaller pieces until the roll is shredded into small enough scraps that he doesn’t have to chew. It reminds him of the day he found Thomas, face down in the shale, and fed him slivers of raw, bloody seal in their tent. Edward is wearing his pyjamas and a dressing gown, but no one pays it any mind. James looks more relieved to see him than anything, and Ann and Sophia are far too busy whispering to each other and exchanging clandestine touches to the thighs, the shoulders, the neck to notice that their guest is in such a state of undress. Only Thomas notices, and he frowns, but lays a broad hand on Edward’s knee when he seats himself next to him.

“It’s wonderful to see you well, Edward,” Sophia says graciously.

He doesn’t feel well so much as completely and entirely devoid of the energy to feel anything at all. Still, he nods and thanks Miss Cracroft.

She looks knowingly from Edward to Thomas.

“You have a true friend in Mr. Jopson.”

Thomas interjects, hand squeezing Edward’s knee. “Just as true a friendship as you and Lady Ann, I’m sure.” He and Sophia wear similar coy smiles, but Edward returns his gaze to his plate and raises the last scrap of bread to his mouth.

* * *

The melancholy sets in during his fourth week with the Rosses.

Thomas rises first as he always does, bustling about the bedroom to light the fire. He still refuses to let the servants help with the morning routine, something Edward is thankful for. They haven’t made love beyond an exchange of roaming, grasping hands beneath striped pyjama pants since their arrival to the Ross house, but their mornings alone hold an intimacy unmatched by anything Edward has experienced. To wake up with Thomas, blankets warmed by the closeness of their bodies; lazy kisses traded as Edward is pulled towards consciousness; the softness of Thomas’s voice when he asks how Edward is feeling; is, even through the haze of melancholy that descends over him like a thick fog, more than Edward feels he deserves.

This morning, he struggles.

His body feels heavy, weighed down with the heavy stones he feels roil in his gut. His eyes disobey his mind and close, eyelids heavy and craving the darkness that he has been pulled from by the press of Thomas’s lips to his forehead.

Thomas brushes the errant lock of black hair off his forehead and huffs before tenderly kissing Edward’s forehead and leaving the room to bring him a breakfast tray. It isn’t unusual for Edward to sleep away the morning, but he had been getting so much better.

* * *

On the fifth day Edward doesn’t get out of bed, Thomas throws the curtains open, blinding Edward as sunlight streams into their room.

“Get up, Edward,” he says, a little more forcefully than before.

Edward rolls over, burying his face in the warm spot that Thomas has just left.

“I can’t,” he groans, pulling the blankets over his head. Thomas grabs hold of them and pulls, dragging the covers off of Edward and leaving his pyjama-clad body exposed.

“I’ll make you breakfast myself,” Thomas offers. “Eggs. Coffee. Those little sausages you like.”

“’M not hungry,” Edward says, burying his face deeper in the pillows and curling up in a ball to stay warm.

Thomas throws the blankets back over him before returning to the bedside and sitting down next to the lump Edward makes in the bed.

“You didn’t eat yesterday either.”

“Nnnn,” comes from under the heavy blankets.

“Christ, Edward!” Thomas says, pulling the blankets back again. “Are you trying to be difficult or are you always this hard to love?”

Edward rolls to face away from him, eyes shut tightly.

Thomas doesn’t stop. “After everything, why are you still trying to kill yourself? Don’t you want to live?” The ‘_with me’_ hangs in the air between them, unsaid.

“Not really,” Edward says quietly, but not quietly enough for Thomas to ignore. With a frustrated sigh, Thomas storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Edward turns over and goes back to sleep.

* * *

The guilt doesn’t come until he wakes up to a cold, empty bed. Edward can see the sun setting through the open drapes. His empty stomach rumbles aggressively and he sighs, knowing that he can’t stay in bed forever. After dragging himself away from the temptation of going back to sleep, he puts on his dressing gown and pads out of the room and down to the kitchen.

There’s a covered plate sitting on the dining room table, no doubt left for him on instruction from Thomas. His guilt intensifies.

When the melancholy first hit him, Edward told himself it wouldn’t interfere with his recovery. His wrists were nearly healed, and soon he and Thomas were going to move on and go somewhere together to forget their previous lives. But the deep chasm he feels in his chest exhausts him, and the darkness in his mind whispers soft paranoias that worm into his brain.

_He’s better off without you._

_You’re a burden._

_You’re holding him back. You remind him of The Tent. You remind him he’s alone._

Edward shakes his head, trying to dislodge the thoughts that have worked their way inside his mind and spiral around, tainting his image of Thomas.

The real Thomas is outside, smoking a pipe. He’s in his shirtsleeves, and Edward wonders if he should bring a blanket. But Thomas has already noticed him, and it would be a show of weakness to retreat now. He sits down on the porch next to him.

“I’ve never seen you smoke a pipe before,” is all Edward can think to say.

Thomas says nothing, just bites at the stem of the black pipe and gazes off into the distance.

Edward sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. Thomas looks at him then, his face unreadable. He stays quiet.

“I feel like there’s a great hole in my chest, and every ounce of happiness in my life is trapped in it. I feel guilty because I _should _feel glad to be alive and to be here with you, but I _can’t,_ and it hurts, and I don’t know why.”

Thomas’s eyes drop to his lap and he offers Edward the pipe.

Edward takes it and savours the heavy smoke settling over his lungs as he inhales. The pipe is warm from Thomas’s mouth.

“If I was you, I wouldn’t stay,” he says after exhaling the tobacco smoke.

“That’s the problem,” Thomas says, and he stands and goes back inside.

* * *

It is Sophia that ends the unbearable tension in the house. It has been two days since Edward and Thomas have spoken. This is the first meal Edward has attended in over a week, and he picks at his food in silence as Sophia tries to engage him and Thomas in conversation.

“Oh, bugger it all!” she says, throwing her fork down on the table. “Just tell me what’s wrong with you two and we’ll fix it! I’ve become so used to the sound of you two in bed together that I can’t sleep with this suffocating silence!”

Edward chokes on his dinner roll, and the butler has to step in to pound him on the back until he is able to cough up the offending bread.

“Excuse me?” he says, reaching for his glass of water.

Thomas is bright red but looks slightly amused. “She knows,” he says, making eye contact with Sophia. The both of them break out into giggles.

Edward looks in horror between the two. “What… what exactly did you-?”

“She expressed an interest,” Thomas shrugs.

“I wondered how two men go about loving each other, and then I asked Thomas where he learned.”

Edward pales. “And you-“

Thomas nods. “We learned from the best. It wouldn’t do to lessen his legacy, especially after his tragic non-death.”

“I wasn’t aware Francis had such inclinations,” Sophia says. “It troubles me to say that if I had known, I may have received him differently. After all, Ann, James and I do occasionally feel like there’s a missing piece to our puzzle.”

Edward is shocked into silence and forgets Sophia’s original request until Thomas answers it.

“Edward refuses to take care of himself,” he says. It’s an accurate claim and Edward does not think of refuting it until Thomas adds, “and he said if our positions were reversed, he would abandon me again.”

“No!” he exclaims. “I wouldn’t, Thomas. You know I wouldn’t.”

“Why not? You’ve left me before,” he shoots back. It hits like a bullet in Edward’s chest.

“No,” he pleads, “I only meant that _you _should leave _me._ I’m not… I’m holding you here. I’m a burden on you. You deserve someone whole.”

“Edward,” Sophia says softly, “have you forgotten who you’re speaking to? Do you think Thomas would be here if he didn’t want to be?”

“After everything we’ve been through together, Edward? You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be here. I’ll be here because I want to be. Because I love you, even if you won’t let me.”

Realization hits Edward like a cannonball. He’s an idiot for falling back into his old patterns of thinking. He’s in a downward spiral, drowning in a whirlpool of self-pity, and Thomas is the only one who can help him up. The hand Thomas reaches out is not out to push him beneath the swirling current, but for him to grasp onto, to pull him out of the waters of doubt and into the warm embrace of hope.

He stands, limps over the Thomas’s chair, and drops to his knees, resting his head against Thomas’s thigh and sighing in relief when Thomas’s hands brush through his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m terribly stupid sometimes.”

“I’ve noticed,” Thomas says wryly, but there’s no heat to it, just love.

“I don’t know how to fix myself, but I do want to try. For you. For us. I want to live, even if I say otherwise.”

Thomas’s fingertips spread over his cheek, barely touching his skin. “It’s painful to see you hurting and not be able to help you.”

“I know.”

“Do you want me to stay anyways?” Thomas asks. It’s an obvious test, but Edward does not need to think about it before he answers, “Yes.”

* * *

The months pass and Edward continues to make daily attempts at attending meals. Some days are more successful than others, but Thomas does not chide him when he eats only a mouthful or two of eggs or potatoes or soup before pushing his bowl away before excusing himself.

“Healing isn’t a linear process,” Thomas says each time when he wraps Edward in his arms at night and burrows his nose in his hair. “You’re doing so well. I’m proud of you.”

Most nights they make love. It’s different now from the way they used to; Edward finds pleasure in lying back on the mattress while he lets Thomas consume his senses with soft caresses and tender kisses before his body yields to probing fingers and an adventurous tongue, teasing and bringing him closer and closer to the edge before disappearing and returning to light touches and gentle presses of lips against his belly. Thomas’s fingers dance over his body like an instrument, pushing the right keys to play noises of pleasure in Edward’s voice. This routine continues for hours, until the candles are burned down low and Edward has forgotten what it feels like to be alone. His breath comes in short pants and tears of frustration and love roll down his cheeks as Thomas teases his entrance again, soft wet tongue laving over his opening. Edward begs, thighs quivering as his good leg wraps around Thomas’s bare shoulders.

It feels like a breath of fresh air when Thomas presses inside.

It isn’t the hot, explosive pleasure Edward used to feel when they were together, but it’s comfortable. He feels safe in Thomas’s arms; safe enough to fall apart completely, knowing that Thomas will be there to put him together afterwards.

Thomas always does. After Edward comes, shivering and shaking with Thomas’s face pressed into his neck, it’s Thomas who wipes them clean, then wipes the tears from Edward’s face with his own clean handkerchief. It’s Thomas who pulls the blankets over Edward’s body, still thin but regaining strength by the day, and pulls himself flush against his back, where he takes his lover’s hand in his and presses their clasped hands against the steady heartbeat in Edward’s chest. They drift off to sleep together, and like this, Edward can almost begin to look forward to the morning.


End file.
